The Flywheel

Next meeting: January 13th

Cogeneration at Chevron

Chevron engineer Tim Burchfield discusses the modern
co-generation plant at the Richmond Refinery, and the
potential contribution that "co-gen" can make
to the electrical grid.

Meeting of Friday, January 6,
2011

Welcome, Invocation, Thought for the Day

Prez. EJ was caught at a meeting so PP Alan Baer rang
the bell. That ring was ‘a little late’ given member
interest in making sure the full greeting and meting cycle
of the meeting was 90 minutes, not the 60 minute duration perceived
by some. Judy Kafka led the Pledge and Stony
Stonework asked for a moment of silence for Peace, Freedom
and Justice around the world. Henry Kelman’s Thought
for the Day was a loud Happy New Year, and may 2012 be better
for all than 2011!

Rotarians with Guests

Don Lau brought his son Jason. Erle Brown was blessed to be between two lady/guests,
his lovely wife Phyllis and his lovely niece Mattie
Hunt. Jim Young was equally blessed as he introduced
his lovely wife Linda and a banking colleague Mehnoosh
Ashkari from the Wells Fargo business banking group
in Concord. Alan Baer introduced his guest Jason
Benz of Merchant Truth Credit Card Processing.

Sunshine Report

It was reported that John Nicol is at home
and is now retired. Give him a call.Sid Chauvin was ill at home and ’busy
at both ends’.

Announcements

Marku Pelanne reminded the club that the
Battleship Iowa is moored at Terminal 3 in the Richmond Inner
Harbor (where the container cranes are located) and open
to the public on weekends until, Sat. & Sun., 10 – 4
until someone figures out how to get enough money to have
it towed to LA, or so the story goes.

David A. Brown (a Mechanic) advised the
club that Mechanics Bank has just deposited $143 in the club’s
account in their annual support of local non[profits.
(DAB did not calculate the effective ‘API’ that
would give the club when the contribution is added to the
interest income otherwise paid by Mechanics Bank.)

Erle Brown beat the Crab Feed drum:The 5th Annual Rotary
Crab FeedJanuary 28th. 6PM bar, 7PM dinnerSalesian High School$40/person
Volunteer
helpers also needed.
Please use the PayPal button on the right to purchase your
tickets, or bring a check to the next meeting.

Mark your calendars for the St. Patrick’s Day dinner
fest March 17th, Saturday at Hs Lordship’s, $45/person
in advance, $50 at the door if seats are still available.

Prez EJ Shalaby, having relieved PP Alan
of temporary duty, advised the club that we had received
a series of thank you letters from the teachers at Peres
School who received our $100 ‘materials’ gift.

Recognitions

Don Lau recognized recent birthday boy PP
Alan Baer for his Christmas Day Birthday. Alan waxed
philosophic about having his B-Day on Christmas, the
ensuing 5 minutes +/- of personal recognition and his own
unique relationship with Santa who many of us also know as
Mrs. Alan Baer. In spite of that Alan will remember his B-Day
with a contribution to the Warner/Rafus Fund.

Happy and Sad Dollars

Josh Genser was Happy he finally got to
go with Herb and Sid and Fish Alan on the epic Delta sturgeon
quest. He was even more Happy he bought a couple of bags
of Pringles before leaving the marina store, otherwise the
only thing they would have had to eat on the trip was beer,
wine and scotch. What sturgeon?

Josh G. had Happy $$ for the trip he and his daughter took
to the Fiesta Bowl to watch Stanford lose. That wasn’t
their goal, but it was such a good game, ‘It was worth
it!”

Liliane Koziol, just back last night,
from Madagascar had Happy $$ for our Rotary Hospital project
which is now fully operational and performing as originally
proposed.

Stony Stonework had Happy $$ for the new
Cal football schedule because the Bears are going to play
Ohio State in Columbus and, I’m going to that one”.

Norm's Nonsense

The lawyer was cross-examining the doctor about whether he
checked the pulse of the deceased before he signed the death
certificate.
"No," he said, "I didn't check his pulse."
"And did you listen for a heartbeat?" said the lawyer.
"No, I did not," said the doctor.
"So," said the lawyer, "when you signed the death certificate,
you had not taken steps to make sure he was dead."
The doctor
replied, "Well, let me put it this way. The man's
brain was in a jar on my desk, but for all I know he could be
out practicing law somewhere."

PROGRAM

A vist from Brazil's Consul General Ramos

A travel weary Liliane Koziol introduced today’s
guest and speaker, the Honorable Eduardo Prisco Paraiso
Ramos Counsel General of Brazil. CG Ramos was born in
1951 in Rio de Janeiro, attended the Catholic University
in journalism and has served Brazil as a career diplomat
most of his life. Prior to becoming CG for San Francisco
he was Ambassador to Panama and held posts in London,
Paris and several other Latin American countries.

CG Ramos thanked Liliane for inviting him to Richmond
Rotary and wished everyone a Happy New Year. He then
provided a few factoids about Brazil: It is the largest
country in South America accounting for ½ the
continental land mass and is 3,300 thousand square miles.
Brazil is the 5th largest country on Earth, The Largest
city is Sao Paulo with a population of 11million followed
by Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, total population 191
million. Sao Paul is the second largest ‘Italian’ city
in the world with an Italian descendent population of
million.

CG Ramos said Brazil is a ‘boring country with
only an occasional flood, no earthquakes, tornadoes,
volcanoes, cyclones. ‘Boring’, except for
Carnival, and the pending 2016 Olympics and the 2014
World Cup (which he acknowledged may not mean much in
the US but was a very big deal in the rest of the world)
and, oh yes, the 7.5% annual GDP economic growth which
has slowed in the Great Recession to 3.5%. This is a
highly abbreviated telling of the story but CG Ramos
credited the current very strong Brazilian economy to
the restoration of democracy after a long period of military
rule, elimination of hyper inflation through the hard
work , pragmatic ‘economic policies of the 1990s
and some important infrastructural investment that
has simultaneously allowed Brazil to become a world agribusiness
player and allowed for a major expansion of consumerism
and the middleclass. Brazilian global exports are now
dominated by beef, chicken and soy cake. They still include
the traditional commodities of coffee and sugar but now
also include orange juice concentrate. They also include
a host of manufacture products, most notably aircraft.
CG Ramos said that most of the Jet Blue aircraft fleet
is composed of Embraer aircraft made in Brazil. Of course
there was more.

CG Ramos fielded a couple of tough questions from the
members. Asked about the Brazilian attitude about climate
change, CG Ramos said that there was real concern about
Amazonia and the possible destabilization of the
tropical environment which was seen as bad for Brazilian
agriculture, the economy and the nation as a whole. CG
Ramos was also asked about the social unrest that has
been created by the clearing of Rio’s slums as
part of Olympic development. He acknowledged that
it was a complicated and difficult situation as the Favelas
(shanty towns) in Rio have always existed ‘beyond
the civil government’ and that the reintegration
of the favelas into the civil community meant that their
extra-governmental social order which is dominated by
criminal gangs had to go through the process of removing
the criminals and reintegrating the non-criminal majority
population back into the community. He said it is a work
in progress but that at least Rio has finally faced up
to a situation that it has ignored for about 100 years.

A wistful look came over CG Ramos when he was asked to
make recommendation for potential visitors to Carnival.
He said it is ‘wonderful and for a week the country
shuts down with the only job being pursued by everyone
is being happy’. He suggested that in addition
to Rio, those who want to experience a unique Carnival
should consider visiting Bahia and Recife.
Thank you Counsul General Ramos. We hope you will be
able to vacation at Carnival as well as providing Rotary
with very current information about modern Brazil.

- Rotating Editor, Jim Young/

Rotary Calendar

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see it, use the link in the upper navigation bar. Or
if that's too far too travel, click
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Upcoming Programs

January 20
T.B.D.

January 27
The new Executive Director of Early Childhood Mental
Health Program outlines the agency's work
in west county for children between the ages of birth
and 5-years old.

Have a suggestion for a
speaker? Please pass along the name and contact
information to Jim Young.